The Shedding of the Snake’s Skin
A reflection on my first Saturn Return in the Year of the Snake, and stepping into the Year of the Horse
I’m sure many people, especially those attuned to the spiritual world, would agree that 2025 has been a year of shifting. Some shifts have felt loud and undeniably clear in their presence. Others have been softer and quieter. Nonetheless, it has been a year of undeniable movement in our individual lives and in the broader energy of that which lies beyond what we can see.
For me, this year has held many transitions. I moved from the Netherlands back to my home country of the UK. I left city life to return to the countryside. I said goodbye to my 20s and stepped into my 30s. I am growing away from being a First Officer toward becoming a Captain in the new year. It has been my first Saturn Return; a well-known astrological period of someone’s life filled with reckoning, restructuring and realignment through embracing one’s integrity and authenticity. And fittingly, all of this unfolded for me under the energy of the Year of the Snake.
The Snake is a symbol of renewal. Snakes shed their skin to grow into a new version of themselves, leaving behind what no longer fits or serves them. Shedding isn’t elegant. It’s uncomfortable. It leaves the body feeling raw, irritated and vulnerable to infection. As a sufferer of intermittent dyshidrotic eczema, I know very much how this feels. Whilst going through a shedding period, snakes are temporarily blinded by the process. As inconvenient and threatening as that experience must be to them, they must trust the process of their shedding (including the blindness) instinctively to bring them into a new body.
A few weeks ago, I lived my own embodiment of that process. After being free of eczema for three years, aided by dietary adjustments, it suddenly returned. Inflamed, raging across my palms, wrists and between my fingers. Towards mid-December, I noticed I had begun feeling disregulated in my nervous system. Tensions and anticipations coming up that I wasn’t able to shift. I had almost this impending sense of doom that life had been going too well for a while and that something must happen to disrupt my path, as it has always done. My intuition was not wrong. Just days before Christmas, I stabbed my eye on a blade of coarse grass and faced three days of temporary blindness. I was unable to open either eyes due to the swelling, pain and light sensitivity of my injured eye. That experience was beyond any phyiscal and disorientating, yet deeply humbling.
The spirit of the Snake was speaking loudly. It had lessons still left for me to learn prior to it giving way to the Horse.
While I was faced with full temporary blindness, unable to open my eyes and unable to tolerate any light, I found myself alone in my house. Sitting on my bed in darkness and in significant pain, wishing life to be different than what I was facing. The only activities I could do were to meditate and listen to audiobooks or podcasts. Many philosophical and spiritual frameworks embody the concept of us getting what we need, not what we want. In Stoicism lies the teaching that life brings what is necessary for growth, not always what desire craves. Buddhists similarly acknowledge desires cause suffering and that life’s experiences give opportunities for awakening, rather than gratification. Christians trust in providence, embedding the idea that you are given what you need spiritually. One more example lies in psychology, especially coming from Carl Jung, suggesting life challenges meet inner developmental needs.
Circling back to my blindness and limited activities, I picked up Warwick Schiller’s Journey On Podcast where I had last left it; The Journey Resumed: Karen Rohlf. It was exactly the episode I needed to hear. As I listened, I was very aware of my pain and at that moment. Karen reflected on teachings from Michael Singer about pain and how, in her words, he teaches us that “pain and suffering come from wishing things were different than they are.” In The Untethered Soul, Singer expresses to the reader that pain itself isn’t the problem. Pain is something we can experience without resistance and we must be mindful that suffering comes from resistance to the experience. When we relax into pain instead of fighting it, it passes through us, freeing us.
““When you feel pain, simply view it as energy. Just start seeing these inner experiences as energy passing through your heart before the eye of your consciousness… Relax and release… Let go and give room for the pain to pass through you. It’s just energy”
“Everytime you do something in the name of avoiding pain, that something becomes a link that holds the potential for the pain you are avoiding… To be free, simply view pain as a temporary shift in your energy flow.””
As I sat on my bed listening to Karen and Warwick discuss on Michael Singer’s teachings about pain, I decided to play with how I was feeling the pain in my body and mind. I explored presence in the darkness. I asked myself can I sit with it rather than wish it away? Can I separate the physical sensation from the story my mind wants to create? Can I exist with what is, instead of what I wish it was? I sat there. I breathed. I softened. I surrendered. Somewhere in that surrender, the pain lessened. I could release it. I found myself entering a meditative state and that softened into sleep. When I woke up, I noticed the intensity of my pain had shifted. My body was healing. My eye was recovering. My nervous system was quietening. The Snake had shed another layer.
A couple of days later, I was sharing this story with Talya Mare of Heartfelt Facia. She asked a spiritual question: “What don’t I want to see? Or what am I avoiding looking at?” My first response was one of no answer. But as soon as I shared that with her I realised I knew exactly what the answer was. Once again, The Snake was speaking loudly. For me, I know I avoid looking at my successes and achievements. That comes from the scars of an unfulfilled athletic career, one where I stepped away knowing I had been unable to reach my potential and get to know exactly what that potential could have been. It comes from years of not being around like-minded and like-spirited human beings; unable to accept me as me and thus me suppressing who I truly am, not holding my integrity or knowing even what my integrity is. It feels as if I avoid looking at my own potential and unable to validate my path so far. I still cannot wholeheartedly own my story, but I am working on it.
In these last days of December, we are Shedding the Snake and we will be moving into the Year of the Horse. Whilst the Snake is an animal of introspection and asking us to look within ourselves to find what to shed so that we may grow into a renewed version of ourselves; the Horse asks for movement, freedom, momentum and strength. Reflecting on my answer to Talya’s question, I realise in the response lies the questions of the Horse. As we move into 2026, the Horse asks: Where are we going? What do we want to run towards? How do we want to life in freedom now that we have gone through the shedding process? For me this feels like the settling of life in the Somerset countryside as I hopefully move into my permanent, long-term home together with my herd. A time of reconnection to my homeland, the homeland of my soul and honouring that simplicity. A time of stepping into leadership, not just as a First Officer to Captain, but spiritually too - connecting to my inner sharmanic wisdoms and holding them for others to access through my writing and podcasting. And underlying all this, riding forward on the back of my feral, magnificent mare Morgan across the Mendips with clarity, intention and mutual trust. The Snake stripped me of what no longer serves me and the Horse comes to invite me forward again into my deepened self with vision restored, skin renewed and a steadier spirit.
This year has taught me that life doesn’t always whisper in metaphors. Sometimes it pushes us into the literal, physical, very real realm. We must shed our skin so that we may grow. Be in blindness to empower us to see. Sit with our pain so that we may free ourselves of it and reclaim our movement. If you find yourself shedding, disoriented or painfully aware of all the things you cannot yet see, maybe you are where the Snake lives. Trust the process. Trust your body. And trust the intelligence of transition. When your sight returns, even slowly and in part, the Snake will have gone and the Horse will be there waiting ready to run with you.
